Mouse discovers Cheez-It breading. Film at 11.

Now, I totally know breading fried food with Cheez-It crumbs won’t be a new idea for some folks.

But for me, I imagine that this is sort of what the Big Bang was like. You know, if the Big Bang happened in our kitchen, me with a family-sized box of baked snack crackers in hand. (Now that’s science, Mouse-House style.)

Shortly after that conversation, the questions started to arise. What if we used fishy crackers? Or those rosemary crackers I so dearly love? Oh, oh, or rice crackers! What about that?

Seal the bag well and smoosh it around with your hands to coat the chicken. Refrigerate like this for at least a few hours or overnight.

Deep-Fried Chicken Fingers with Crispy Cheez-It Crust: Set up your breading station

Before you heat up your oil, get your ingredients all set up. You’ll wind up with three shallow bowls (one with flour, one with beaten egg, and one with cracker crumbs) that you’ll use to bread your chicken fingers.

Measure out the flour in a shallow bowl or pan. Add the garlic powder and kosher salt to it. (If you want to add any other spices to the crust, this is the place to do it.)

Mix together with a fork or whisk to combine well.

Set the flour aside.

Next, crack your eggs into a shallow bowl.

With a fork or whisk, beat them until light and fluffy.

Set the beaten egg aside.

Put the crackers in a zip-top bag and smash them to bits with a rolling pin.

Break them into fairly small crumbs, like this:

Pour them out into a shallow dish. I used an 8×8 glass baking pan.

Set the cracker crumbs aside. By now, you should have 3 bowls on your counter:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Your chicken might cook completely in the oil. But if your chicken fingers are really large, chances are you’ll need to finish them in the oven for a few minutes.

Line another sheet pan with parchment paper or foil.

Pour about 3 inches of oil into a deep, heavy-bottomed pot. How much oil you need will depend on the size of your pot.

Set your pot on the stove.

If you want to, clip a candy or deep-frying thermometer onto the inside of the pot. (Be sure it doesn’t touch the bottom.) Turn the heat on high. Wait for the oil to reach 350 degrees F. When you fry food at the proper temperature, it actually doesn’t absorb a lot of oil.

I’ve done this a bunch, so I usually don’t use a thermometer. I go more by eye. When I think it’s hot enough, I dip a piece of chicken into the oil. If vigorous bubbles immediately start to form around the chicken, it’s hot enough to fry:

When the oil is hot enough, carefully drop a few pieces of chicken into the oil. Fry in batches like this, so you don’t crowd the pan (and cause the temperature of the oil to drop dramatically, resulting in massive grease absorbtion).

Fry the chicken for a few minutes, give or take, until it develops a handsome brown crust, like this:

When the crust is nice and brown, remove the chicken from the oil and transfer to your prepared pan.

Repeat this process until you’ve fried all your chicken. Turn the stove off and leave your oil there until its cool enough to dispose of (or strain and save).

Cut into one of your chicken fingers and see if it’s cooked through. If your chicken was really thin, it will likely be done. If your pieces were plumper, like mine, they’ll likely still be a little raw in the middle.

If that’s the case, pop the pan into your preheated oven for 5-7 minutes to finish cooking.

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Jessie Cross is a cookbook author and creator of The Hungry Mouse, a monster online food blog w/500+ recipes. When she's not shopping for cheese or baking pies, Jessie serves as an Associate Creative Director at PARTNERS+simons, a boutique ad agency in Boston. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her husband and two small, fluffy wolves.

Cheez-It crust: oh my! As a card-carrying Southerner, I have an honorary doctorate in breading and frying. But Cheez-It crust? How have I missed this? And this is an excellent excuse to buy an extra big box of Cheez-Its....never a bad thing. This is getting made this week!

Dang, those sure do look good.
Sadly, there's no such thing as buttermilk at stores here. Just like double cream, it is a rarity and mostly can't even be found at one of those overpriced stores that specializes in imported products. (Yeah, it sounds like I am living in a jungle but I assure you, I'm living in a modern city of sorts...)
Sigh, I resorted to making my own (buttermilk, that is, I don't think I can make my own double cream) by adding lemon to fresh milk but I'm not even sure if the portion of lemon:milk is right or not...
Anyway, I love the idea of using those cheese crackers as breadcrumbs. Again, not sure if we have Cheez-it here or not...heheheh...
~Foong~

Yum! I make Cheezit chicken fingers for my boys, but i've only baked them in the past (someone has to be the responsible person!) Next time I make them, i'll have to fry them. Yours look so much better than mine. Thanks Jessie!

OMG why have I never thought of that??? You are correct this is an idea of big banged proportions. And I don't even like Cheez-its. But these look amazing! Will definitely be on my list of things to try!

I made these tonight and they were wonderful. I added a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and a good amount of cracked black pepper to the flour. I also split the tenderloins and removed the tendon. This made the fingers cook more evenly and allowed me to control the size of each finger.

A few years ago we went to dinner at a friend's house and she made baked chicken breast that was similar to this, only she used mashed up potato chips. Mine was the Kettle Cooked Jalapeno flavor and it was delicious.
I imagine you could use chips for this too.

[...] Anyway, bearing that in mind and knowing that Brian and I have been on a deep fryer kick these last few weeks, this recipe sounds kind of awesome: Deep-Fried Chicken Fingers with a Crispy Cheez-It® Crust. [...]

This recipe was my first attempt at chicken fingers. It turned out relatively well. I omitted the buttermilk, tried the recipe with egg and cheez-it then again with egg, flour/salt/pepper, back to the egg, and lastly cheez-it. The second concotion turned out a bit better, still somewhat flavorless however. Next time I believe I will rub the chicken strips down with salt, pepper, and herbs first before breading.

[...] Anyway, bearing that in mind and knowing that Brian and I have been on a deep fryer kick these last few weeks, this recipe sounds kind of awesome: Deep-Fried Chicken Fingers with a Crispy Cheez-It® Crust. [...]

[...] Anyway, bearing that in mind and knowing that Mr. B and I have been on a deep fryer kick these last few weeks, this recipe sounds kind of awesome: Deep-Fried Chicken Fingers with a Crispy Cheez-It® Crust. [...]